


roses red

by sunflowerbright



Series: Hotel California [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Supernatural, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think Courfeyrac has gone insane,” Jehan frantically whispers to Grantaire</p><p>Or, the one where Jehan is in a lot of doubt and everyone remembers 1832</p>
            </blockquote>





	roses red

 

“I think Courfeyrac has gone insane,” Jehan frantically whispers to Grantaire, eyes flickering over to the other corner of the bar, dim lights turning their friends over there into hardly more than shapes and shadows.

Grantaire blinks, eyes not quite with that dull gleam of drink yet. He hasn’t been drinking as much. Not tonight. Not today. Jehan wants to ask why, because he thinks, no he _knows_ , that there’s a reason, and the reason is either potentially good or (much more likely) very, very bad.

But he is getting a bit distracted by Courfeyrac going insane. He’ll help sort out Grantaire later.

“No,” Grantaire finally says, having studied their friend for a while. “No, he seems quite his normal self.”

“But he's not though,” Jehan hurries to say. “He’s really not Grantaire! He’s… he’s…”

“He’s what?”

“He’s _flirting with me.”_

Grantaire blinks again, owlishly slow and takes a drink from his bottle. “Jehan…” he says. “This may come as quite a shock to you. But sometimes, sometimes people flirt with other people. Those people, however, are not Courfeyrac… Because Courfeyrac does not ‘sometimes’ flirt with other people. He does that all the time.”

“No, but this was different!”

The curly-haired man looks like he has to fight a grin at the clearly flustered state of his friend. “Different how?”

“It was… he gave me a _look_!”

“A look?”

“Yes, a look. You know, a look like… a look…”

“A _sexy_ look?”

“Grantaire!” Jehan whines, as much because his friend is being unresponsive and unhelpful, as it is because Grantaire’s purring voice and the sinful way he just said that is making him blush. Grantaire laughs out loud, drawing the attention of Combeferre and Enjolras, who quickly turns their focus back on their conversation again, though not before Enjolras has thrown Grantaire a scathing look, as if to ask him how he could dare laugh and have fun when there were children in Africa starving.

If Jehan didn’t currently want to throttle his friend for being such a pain, he would punch on that look and the fact that Grantaire seems to _completely ignore it_ , but now is not the time.

Actually…

“He looked like you sometimes look,” Jehan says, voice more confident than he feels, because this is a potential field of land-mines and he really doesn’t want to take a wrong step.

Grantaire stares at him as if he’s lost his marbles. “Like I sometimes look? You mean ‘drunk and passed out’?”

“No,” Jehan says. “Like you look whenever you’re looking at Enjolras.”

The bottle Grantaire had been holding is set down on the table with a sound loud enough to draw the attention of _everyone_ , but the artist is already marching for the door, not even sparing a glance back towards his friends. The door to the bar shuts closed with a bang, and Jehan feels like shit and wants to run after his friend, wants to apologize, but he knows that it would do no good.

It’s Feuilly who gets up and goes after him, no-one asking Jehan what he’d said, because they’re all assuming that he couldn’t possibly have said anything to upset Grantaire, and the drunkard is just sulking because Enjolras is ignoring him or something.

Jehan turns to look at their fearless leader, and finds him eyeing the door thoughtfully, a frown on his face.

Then, of course, he sees Courfeyrac.

Courfeyrac is _not_ staring at the door.

He’s staring at Jehan.

Again.

Jesus Christ.

 

*

 

“He’s sent me _flowers_ ,” Jehan moans two days later, lying on her and Grantaire’s couch with his head mashed into the pillow, arms and legs dangling over the side. He’s prone to fall to the floor any second, but maybe if he moves, Courfeyrac will suddenly appear and _stare at him_ again, so he stays still. “ _Flowers_ , Eponine!”

“How dreadful of him,”

“And now Grantaire isn’t even home so I can apologize to him and ask for help, because _I need help Eponine.”_

“Of course you do. How horrible, having a handsome young man attracted to you.” Her tone isn’t bitter, oh no, not in the least bit.

“I just, I _don’t know what to do_.”

“Jehan!” she snaps, finally, spinning around from whatever-it-was-she-was-doing to fix him with a stare, hands on her hips and eyes like lightning. “Jehan, for the sake of all the gods in heaven and my sanity, _what the hell is the matter_.”

Jehan lifts his head from the pillow. “It’s Courfeyrac – haven’t you been listening?”

“Of course I have. But I don’t see the problem!”

“He’s _flirting with me_ ,” Jehan repeats, pronouncing each word slowly and carefully. “He SENT ME ROSES, EPONINE!”

The last part is shouted out loud, the walls vibrating with the sound of it. The whole neighbourhood probably knows now. Scratch that, all of Paris probably knows now, and Eponine probably wants to murder him. She’s been in a piss-poor mood since Marius came barging into their meeting at the café one day, telling everyone about this girl he’d met who had dropped her coffee on him, and how they’d chatted and she had given him her scarf to cover it, but then someone had called for her and she’d gone before he could even get her name and, _she was an angel, surely, from heaven_ , and Jehan may have gotten a little starry-eyed, but also, Marius hardly knew her, and the look on Eponine’s face had been heartbreaking. And now he’s here with her, wailing about love as well, so she’s probably pretty tired of him.

Eponine lifts a beautifully arched eyebrow. “And?” Exhibit A.

“And it’s Courfeyrac,” Jehan says, words muffled as he buries his head in the pillow again. He keeps despairingly mumbling the other man’s name, feeling the weight of the couch dip beneath him as Eponine settles by his hip, placing a gentle hand on his back.

“You’re afraid he’s just doing it to get in your pants,” she says, and Jehan is happy that she can’t see him blush, because _there’s an image._

Courfeyrac would look good in Jehan’s pants, he thinks. He’d look good in anything really. And non-literally speaking, the other thing, the thing Eponine had of course actually meant…

… yeah, he had no trouble imagining that part either.

“As far as I know,” Eponine says, “Courfeyrac has never sent anyone flowers before.”

Jehan wants to breathe a sigh of relief at her words, but his face is currently still mashed into a pillow, and that makes it hard.

“And I’ve fucked him,” Eponine says and Jehan wants to scream again. “So I would know.”

“Mmmkay,” he mutters.

“You can get off my couch now.”

 

*

 

The next day, Grantaire is missing and it’s all Enjolras fault.

Or, at least, Jehan wants to blame Enjolras. Because he’s the one that finally figured out that Grantaire had feelings for him, from Combeferre of all people (and Combeferre over-talking is really a cause to check for the apocalypse or something), and had gone to confront Grantaire, and gently let him down and had ended up insulting the other man instead.

Ah, Enjolras and his way with words.

But Jehan knows that it isn’t just that. He knows that it’s Eponine’s parents coming back in town, and Grantaire’s aunt being released from prison, and years of depression and self-hatred, boiling over, when Enjolras put an actual voice to the thoughts of _‘useless, good-for-nothing drunk’_.

And possibly, parts of it are Jehan’s fault as well.

He doesn’t want to think about that.

He also doesn’t want to think about how he knows all of this because the lot of them can’t keep a secret from each other at all, so everyone knows, and everyone judges and pulls their weight, and it’s wonderful, in a way, only now they’re missing one person, like a body missing a limb, and even if it’s a drunk and cynic and loud and obnoxious limb, it’s still theirs and they miss it.

Its five days before they hear from Grantaire, and it’s Joly that gets the text, of all people, saying that he, Grantaire, is fine and he’ll let them know when he gets back.

Eponine is furious. Enjolras is exasperated (or he pretends to be. Jehan isn’t sure).

Courfeyrac stumbles into Jehan’s bedroom at four in the morning, falling face-first into his bed and hugging the other man close to him.

“This is such a pile of crap,” Courfeyrac hisses and Jehan wonders how the hell Courfeyrac even got in, because he’s sure that he locked the door and _Courfeyrac doesn’t have a key._

“Are you drunk?” he asks when he finally finds his voice.

“No,” Courfeyrac says, nuzzling closer. “No… sorry. Do you want me to leave?”

Jehan lets out breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “No, it’s fine.”

“Sorry,” Courfeyrac repeats, loosening his grip a little (Jehan misses it already).

“You were saying?”

“I’m worried about Grantaire. I didn’t even realize… I think Enjolras misses him. A lot. And I think he regrets saying what he said. A lot.”

Jehan is very much aware of Courfeyrac’s breath hitting the soft skin of his neck, but he tries to focus.

“As far as I can tell,” he says. “As far as… I mean… I think, I think they’ve both screwed up. A lot. I mean, they do that, when it comes to human emotions.”

Courfeyrac snickers a bit at that, and then his nose is bumping against Jehan’s collarbone and _fuck_ , and Jehan doesn’t normally swear – but _fuck._

“You’re right,” he says. “I mean, you always are. You’re so quiet, all the time, but when you say something you’re always right.”

“I’m going to remind you that you said that.”

Jehan doesn’t get an answer to that, because Courfeyrac has fallen asleep next to him. And it’s pefect.

*

It’s Jehan it happens to first, on a windy Friday morning. Actually, it’s the windy Friday morning right after he’s fallen asleep with Courfeyrac beside him, and woken up to an empty bed, but a note with a winking smiley-face and a message saying _thank-you, see you tonight handsome._ There’d even been a little heart drawn beside the smiley. Jehan is _not_ getting butterflies in his stomach because of that. He’s really not.

But he’s walking through the park, and there’s a sudden gust of wind and he’s stumbling forwards suddenly, hardly noticing Bahorel grabbing his arms and frantically asking what’s wrong. Jehan stumbles to the ground and…

… and _remembers._

_*_

He’s the first one, but less than twenty-four hours later they _all_ remember. Remember bullet-wounds and screaming, and orders to fire being given.

They all remember fighting, and they all remember dying.

In 1832 Paris.

It’s pretty… well, it’s pretty bad. Suddenly having to keep track of two lives inside your head, aligning them with each other. Jehan remembers his mother picking him up and telling him a goodnight-story, but he isn’t sure where the memory belongs, if it’s from back then or if it’s from now. And he has a headache, coming from the exact spot where…

Where he’d been shot.

So yeah, pretty bad. Even Enjolras looks shaken by it all.

Really. The only thing keeping Jehan just a little grounded right now, is Courfeyrac sitting beside him, holding his hand like he’s never letting go. He turns his head and smiles at him, and Courfeyrac looks, of all things, _relieved_ at this, and that’s when Jehan realizes that he really should start listening to Eponine, because she’s a genius and she had been right about this, and Courfeyrac has been trying to show Jehan something, and all he’s done is panic and avoid the other man.

So he kisses him, right there in the middle of the café, with two lives rambling together in his head, fighting like bulls _(‘do we fight for a night at the opera now it’s fine I’ll just be home watching telly Jehan are you feeling ill someone call a doctor fire fire to the barricade’)_ , both so strong and neither winning.

He kisses Courfeyrac just as the doors open and Grantaire stumbles in, bleary-eyed from (as far as Jehan can tell) lack of sleep more-so than drink.

Enjolras is out of his chair like a shot, staring at him like a drowning man staring at a piece of wood adrift, and Courfeyrac leans over to whisper something about roles reversed, and Jehan would have snickered, only....

“Hola,” Grantaire says, saluting the room in general, an easy smile on his face that doesn’t even remotely reach his blue, blue eyes. “How’s everyone? Anything happen while I’ve been away?”

Combeferre’s the one to stand up now, moving over to their friend and placing a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s good to see you again,” he says. “How much do you remember?”

The look Grantaire sends him would have been funny in any other situation.

“Combeferre, I’m not that drunk all of the time. I remember leaving. I remember which day it is. Wait, it is Saturday, right?” he winks at the doctor-to-be, who only frowns at him.

“Grantaire…”

It hits Jehan then, because Grantaire is looking at them all puzzled like he doesn’t know why they’re all so quiet, why they’re all staring at him like they’re waiting for him to burst into flames, and what _had_ happened to him back then, where had he gone after that first attack, where had he placed himself to drown in his sorrows?

Jehan probably won’t be getting an answer to that.

Because Grantaire doesn’t remember.

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a series of oneshots, most in the modern world, but some also taking place back in 1832. It really all depends on what I feel inspired to write. Note: most of them are probably going to focus on Enjolras/Grantaire, but everyone else will be very much present as well, and all pairings listed above will have their moments. Also, chronological order, what is that?? (also known as, 'more background will be added')


End file.
